INSPIRATION
I was inspired by the meaning of Johansen's piece, less the technical part of it. There is something incredibly symbolic of a lambs head presented on a platter, not even ready for consumption, just cause. It shows an act of surrender, and the offering up of something. What is offered up depends on the person but I view this as an offering of one's whole self. To give all of yourself up before anything has even happened. Letting go of your needs and responsibilities despite knowing how important they are. The subtle brutality is eye catching, and allows the viewer to wonder over what this means to themselves. For Caravaggio's piece, I was inspired by the expression he was able to convey on Medusa's face. The way he uses color and shadow to shape her expression of distress is done masterfully, and I studied the structure of the face to be able to replicate an expression of my own with the clay.
PLANNING
I knew from the start I wanted to have a very shocking, striking piece. I knew that my theme from the start was going to revolve around self sabotage, and I wanted to create something that felt the way I feel when experiencing it. A head was a given for me, although at first I was not sure what I was going to do with it to express this frustration. In my sketches I messed around with different forms of mutilation and what that could symbolize on the head. Different wounds such as gunshots, blunt force, and other aggressive forms of damage were thought on until I settled with the mouth being forcibly ripped off. As well as removing the eyes.
|
Originally, I wanted there to be a couple pieces involved. A set of sculptures to better convey the message of the damage being inflicted on one self and it not coming from any other force. I thought to include two arms to show the damage in action, but there was almost no way I could set all of these pieces to make sense in the context I wanted. In the end I just settled on sculpting the head.
|
PROCESS
I started with a very large chunk of clay to size out how large I wanted the sculpture to be. I just worked it for a while, rolling it out and giving a vague shape to the pile. This piece of clay was extremely heavy and it took a while for me to get used to its weight and size. After a while, I began to shape a head. Starting with the forehead and large skull portion. It took. lot of concentration to pull the headshape out and to make it proportional. From the forehead the brow bone was carved and pulled upwards from the mound.
Under the brow bone I began on the most recognizable features. I poked two holes into where I wanted to place the eyes and then slowly scooped the clay out in a circular motion. I wanted to get this done in a single try and the motion I was using was leaving an incredibly smooth hole in the head. This was continued until I was left with two large, gaping holes staring back at me. I really wanted to exaggerate the lack of eyes look and kept the edges of the sockets large and protruding from the head. The nose connected to the brow bone and eye sockets, so I slowly pulled connecting clay downwards into a slope. I modeled this nose after my own, using a mirror to replicate my features. This section took a lot of slowly building on the clay, adding little by little and smoothing it out to become part of the nose.
To begin the teared off portion of the face, I constructed an upper lip because I wanted there to be some remnants of it when the face was torn off. With the top lip formed, there was nothing else to do but go for for it. I took an incredibly large fork and quickly ripped at the middle of the lips. Seeing as this worked, I continued to rip and remove chunks of the lower portion of the face. This was continued until the only thing left was the mangled lower half of the face.
EXPERIMENTATION
When I began removing chunks from the face, the large fork pulled the best pieces while leaving the most mangled remains. This large fork simultaneously left the face semi in tact, which gave a much better effect than just cleanly pulling pieces off. I thought I could use a smaller fork to pull even smaller pieces, and leave even stringier remains behind. However when the small fork was used to pull clay, the clay was too thick to pulled in smaller ribbons. Instead of going through the gaps in the fork, it just clogged up and pulled large pieces with no remains at all. I still wanted smaller details, so I tried out a kitchen knife I had to slice at the leftover clay hanging. This was incredibly effective in giving me the smaller more detailed pieces I wanted, but it did take a lot more time and concentration. |
CRITIQUE
Similarities:
- In general, there is a theme of the symbolism of being beheaded and taking great harm to the face. All three pieces involve varying levels of facial harm. - Expression through eyes is used in all pieces. Most of the attention is drawn to the eyes or lack of in the work. My piece highlights the absence of the eyes, Johansen delicately painted the lamb's eyes to have a soft twinkle to them, representing the life that once was, and Caravaggio used the eyes to express genuine fear and shock. |
Differences:
- Caravaggio and Johansen both utilized color to further the expression and theme in both of their pieces. Being a more complete work, while my head remains bare of color. - The mediums used are quite different, Carravagio and Johansen used oil paints to create a complete image alongside the main subject. They were able to add backgrounds and other details to tie other elements into their work. My medium restricted me to the single form I created. |
REFLECTION
It had been quite some time since I had last worked with clay, and was thrilled to be using the medium once again. I struggled a lot at the start, having to re-introduce myself to all of the basics and principles before I could begin the actual artistic process. But once I had spent a fair amount of time experimenting, I dove headfirst into the process and hoped for the best. I believe I was extremely successful in constructing a head that looked human and captured the essential features of a face and head shape. The expression on the face was somewhat successful as I had chosen to remove a lot of the face for the effect. I would have liked to have conveyed more emotion through what was left. Perhaps shape the eyebrows and brow bone a lot more to contort the overall expression. In the end I am very satisfied with the results, and I pleasantly surprised myself with the end product.
CONNECTING TO THE ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The way color and shadow is used to shape two dimensional objects I used to shape my three dimensional sculptures
What is the overall approach the author has regarding your topic of your inspiration?
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The way color and shadow is used to shape two dimensional objects I used to shape my three dimensional sculptures
What is the overall approach the author has regarding your topic of your inspiration?
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?